Falling at the Seams
by il labirinto
Summary: Major Catching Fire spoilers, don't read unless you've read the book. "At the back of my mind, I began wondering why the thought of his death pierced my heart worse than the thought of Gale’s." Rated T because I'm paranoid. K/P, some OC-ness


Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games, no matter how much I wish I did. Besides, if I did, I would've made Katniss realize that she and Peeta were made for each other by now(:

I'm on a writing roll, baby! :D I don't have any clue where I got this idea, but I just finished Catching Fire, so I had to write this.

**Warning: Major Catching Fire spoilers, DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU'VE READ THE BOOK!**

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"There is no District 12."

The words rang in my head for five hours now. But it wasn't that, that worried me the most.

Peeta.

He was gone. Good as dead. I choked back tears at the thought. Peeta couldn't die. He was as much part of this rebellion as I was.

Exactly why the Capitol would kill him as soon as they had the chance. And, hell, they did right now.

I began trembling and sobbing as thoughts of Peeta being tortured because of me filled my head. It was my entire fault. I began this stupid rebellion the second I pulled out those berries. I should've found another way to get me and Peeta both home, safe and sound. I just had to be the stupid, brave, idiotic, symbol for the uprisings. And now, Peeta, sweet, sweet, kind, handsome Peeta was gone, kidnapped by the city that wanted us more than dead.

They wanted to rip our limbs apart, make us beg for death.

They wanted us to cry, beg, and scream for mercy. And they would refuse. They would make us scream bloody murder while doing things like ripping out our fingernails or cutting off our eyelids. They had endless, creative ways to kill us.

Except, right now, they just had Peeta.

I heard a blood-curdling scream and faintly wondered where it came from before realizing it was from me. Gale, Haymitch, and Finnick burst into the room and tried to calm me down as I screamed Peeta's name, over and over again.

At the back of my mind, I began wondering why the thought of his death pierced my heart worse than the thought of Gale's.

I felt muscular arms around me and began thrashing before realizing that it was Gale trying to comfort me.

I began crying when I realized that it wasn't him that I wanted to be held by.

I clawed at him until he let me go and ran outside of the room. The rational side of me began telling me that I had nowhere to run inside of the hovercraft and that I was days away from the city that held my Peeta.

My Peeta.

Why was I so stupid and blind?

I ran away from the hallway before the three men could grab hold of me once more. I ran inside of the hovercraft that held me prisoner until I reached a room far away from the one I was just in. I slammed the door open and flung myself inside the darkness that awaited me.

I might have been inside of there for days for all I cared. All I knew was that my dreams were filled with Peeta's sweet face. Of him holding me during the nightmares, of him baking, of when he gave me the burnt bread he risked a beating for. One memory stood out against the rest.

_I was in lunch eating alone, as usual. If Gale was the same age as me, we would've eaten together but he wasn't so I ate alone, occasionally with Madge. I picked at the bread I was supposed to be eating when I felt something burning onto my face. I thought it was a bug so I swatted my face several times before looking up to meet a pair of bright blue eyes. I blinked several times before recognizing the face._

_The boy with the bread._

_Or as I found out a few years ago, Peeta Mellark. He was in several, or most, of my classes, so I vaguely wondered why I've never talked to him before. Then I took a better look at his table. It was filled with all the merchant kids, the type that never associated with kids from the Seam for fear that their parents would find out. I met his gaze again, just to find that his eyes were burning with an emotion that I've only seen on Gale's face several times. My eyebrows knitted together._

_I wonder what they thought when they had that look._

_Just when he was about to stand up to greet me, I think, the bell rang, signifying time to go back to class. I stood up, threw away my food, and looked up to find that Peeya and I were the only ones in the lunchroom. He smiled at me and for the first time, I felt mesmerized. I opened my mouth to say anything when a pretty red-head burst in._

"_Peeta! We're going to be late! Let's go!" she shrieked. She grabbed his muscular arm and dragged him out of the room. He looked at me in disappointment before he disappeared from the room, and I couldn't help but feel bitter for the rest of the day._

That was two years ago. I wish that the girl hadn't burst into the room at that very moment. Maybe then, we would've become an actual couple unlike the fake, twisted one the Capitol created. I hugged my knees and began rocking back and forth to stop the ache in my chest.

What was wrong with me? I'm Katniss Everdeen, ruthless, cruel, coldhearted winner of the 74th Hunger Games. The Girl on Fire. I wasn't supposed to be breaking at the thought of my supposed lover's death.

But the cold hard truth was, the thought of his death was making the old Katniss disappear. Turning her into a sobbing, emotional mess. I rocked back and forth faster and felt my head hit a cold metal. I stopped rocking and touched the back of my head to find another bump forming. I sighed and laid down on the cold hard floor, thoughts of Peeta, rebellions, the Capital, and District 13 filling my head, and with that, I drifted into the dark abyss of my mind.

I felt a warm hand shaking me awake.

I jumped up and was surprised to find sheets falling off my body. I looked up to find Gale's worried gray-eyed stare boring right into my own emotionless eyes.

"Katniss." He breathed in relief. I understood the emotion that was always in his and Peeta's eyes now.

It was love.

I lost it in that moment. I began sobbing and threw myself in to Gale's arms.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Gale." I heard myself say.

"Sorry? About what?" I heard the confusion in his voice.

"I'm sorry I can't love you the way you love me." I whispered. Tears began spilling from my eyes. Gale let me go at that moment to stare at me in shock. I sobbed like the pathetic, love sick idiot I was while his eyes stared at me in heartbreak. I looked down at the white bed sheets I was clutching in my fists and felt his presence leave the room. I began trembling all over and held back the tears and screams that threatened to spill out. I felt a hand on my shoulder and met Finnick's sad stare. His eyes searched my own before he began speaking.

"We're here." He said in an emotionless voice. I blinked in confusion.

"Here?" My voice sounded smaller, weaker.

"District 13." And with that, he left the room in the same manner as I probably would. I pulled the sheets completely off my body and placed my feet softly on the floor. I winced as I felt the cold of the tiled floor.

I found shoes at a corner in the room and put them on softly, I vaguely noticed that Beetee was moved from my room. I sighed and walked out of the room only to be grabbed by Haymitch. I looked at him in surprised. He looked at me with only fury in his eyes.

"You have to pull yourself together sweetheart," I flinched at the dreaded name, "I know you just found out your feelings for the boy, but you can't lose it now! There are 11 Districts out there, looking at you as their symbol of hope, and they can't know that you're losing your mind. From now on, I want you to be as normal as possible. If you don't, so help me, I will probably try to kill you before the Capital can." He finished his speech with a glare and let go of me. I landed on my butt and looked up to find him walking away. I stood up and followed him. Once we reached the entrance, I looked outside to just see forests. My eyebrow shot up to my hairline.

"Where are the ruins?" I asked. Haymitch looked at me as if I was an idiot. Oh yeah, I am.

"We can't just land on the ruins, sweetheart. We have to leave the hovercraft or else the Capital would be able to find us." I nodded and followed him out. We reached an old oak tree and found Finnick, Beetee, Gale, Prim, and my mother.

Prim.

I flung myself at her and hugged her with all the strength I had. I kissed both her cheeks and let go at her to look into her big blue eyes. I wasn't surprised to find tears of sorrow and grief. She hugged me tightly around the waist while I patted her head. I looked up and found my mother's eyes. I opened my arms and she slowly walked into the hug. We held onto each other for what seemed like hours, even though I knew for sure that it was just a few minutes. Soon, I head a throat clear so I let go of my sobbing family. Haymitch nodded his head and began hiking in the woods to what would have to become our new home.

The hike was a complete blur. All I remember was holding onto Prim's hand and seeing Finnick's look of death from what I guessed was because Annie was left behind. We must have looked like quite a group. A sobbing girl holding onto her corpse looking sister, a handsome man who looked like he was breaking at the seams, a dark young man holding a spear, a middle aged man who looked furious beyond comprehension, an insane old man, and a worn down woman.

I started laughing hysterically and everyone turned around to look at me in shock. Prim looked at me as if I was losing my mind.

And maybe I was.

We finally made it to what looked like a meadow. Once there, Haymitch gave the four note tune that Rue used before she died. I clutched the ache in my chest to stop the pain. A man and a small girl appeared from a tree. The man was around his early thirty's and looked as if he worked out regularly. The girl on the other hand was so small; she was around Rue's size. She had light brown hair with dark green eyes. The man looked like her father.

"Who are you?" The man had such a deep voice, I almost giggled. I felt so out of character, maybe it was from losing the love of my life. I clutched my chest harder when an unbearable pain began throbbing. The girl, who looked about 13 despite her small frame, looked at me curiously before realization dawned on her.

"Dad, it's her." She whispered, her pretty eyes wide. Her dad turned to me and seemed to understand all of a sudden. What he understood, though, was beyond my comprehension at this point.

"Katniss Everdeen? Everyone thinks you're dead." He hissed. I noticed that he had bright blue eyes.

That was all it took for me to break down.

I clutched my heart with both hands and fell down onto the ground. I sobbed and cried and screamed. This was so unlike me, but the pain of the possibility of losing Peeta was so great, that it overpowered the thought of even Prim dying. I couldn't take it, the pain, it was making me lose my mind. Peeta might be dead, because of me. Oh God.

The rational side of me was begging to take control, telling me that Haymitch might be plotting my death right now. And then it said something that stopped my moment of madness: Peeta needs me to be strong. He needs me to be able to think rationally and be able to handle everything thrown at me, because if I didn't it wasn't just his life that might be lost, but millions of lives too.

I felt a small hand graze my cheek, wiping away the tears before a pair of arms picked me up, like a baby. I heard voices speaking and then the body began walking. We walked for an hour from there. I kept drifting in and out of sleep, my dreams filled with ashy, blond hair covered in blood and glassy blue eyes. Soon, I heard voices.

"Is that the girl on fire?"

"She sure doesn't look all powerful. Wonder what happened." I heard the sound of smacking skin.

"She just lost the love of her life, you idiot. Of course she looks vulnerable. "

I wanted to open my eyes, to look around me, to see the civilization I didn't know until a few days ago existed, but they wouldn't open. I felt so tired. And the arms, were so warm and comfortable.

I fell asleep.

It was a few hours before I woke up, but it felt like minutes. I looked around me to see a dark room with walls made of metal with no windows. I began panicking, what if the Capital captured me during my sleep? I heard faint snoring to my left and I found a body with blond hair.

My heart began racing.

Then the head popped up and I found myself looking at Prim. My heart went back to normal. Of course it wasn't who I thought it was. I'm being a stupid emotional mess. I got off the bed I was in and crawled to Prim.

"Hey." I whispered. Her eyes searched mine for a second before looking at the floor. I frowned. "What's wrong?"

"You're supposed to be strong." She whispered. "So why are you crying so much? Since when do you break? You're supposed to be the big, strong sister while I'm supposed to cry for everything." She whispered. I looked at her in shock. To anyone else, her words would've sounded harsh, wrong, but to me, they were the truth. What have I've been doing? I looked at the sister that I loved most in the world and realized that she needed me to be strong or she would break too.

"I'm sorry."

I looked at Prim's innocent, big eyes, and made at promise at that very moment.

I would get Peeta back, alive, and well no matter what but I would not break or change because of it.

I would keep everyone I love alive and defy the Capital.

And it would have to start here, in this city I had though was not alive.

I was the girl on fire, the mockingjay, the symbol of hope, one of the star-crossed lovers. And I would win this battle and help change the world.

No matter what.

Because I am one of the millions of lives willing to risk her life for her family, friends, and lover; and I will not give up hope that the Capital will lose.

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